Yuuri

Yuuri (有里) is a concept artist and illustrator from Kyoto Prefecture, based in Fukuoka. From 2012 until the autumn of 2018 Yuuri worked in-house at the game developer Level-5, contributing mainly to the Ni no Kuni and Yo-kai Watch series, before going freelance. Since then the work has centred on concept art, setting designs and key visuals for games, anime and film, together with main visuals and package illustrations, for clients in Japan and abroad.

Yuuri's images are atmospheric landscapes and townscapes: imagined places described through the detail of everyday life, from world maps and village layouts to individual buildings and interiors, so that a viewer can picture living in them. The artist describes concept art and setting sketches not as finished pictures but as design pieces that capture fragments of a larger imagined world. This approach is set out in Sekaikan no Tsukurikata (How to Build a World), an introduction to concept art from idea generation to design published by Shoeisha in 2021, and in lectures and courses for CGWORLD and for vocational schools.

In 2023 the solo exhibition Welcome to Irohari Town at 9DAYS GALLERY in Shibuya, Tokyo, turned the gallery into fragments of a fictional town that visitors could walk into, with wall production and projection supported by Seiko Epson. Yuuri's work is presented in Europe by Tokiol.

Selected exhibitions

2023 Irohari-cho e Youkoso (Welcome to Irohari Town), solo exhibition, 9DAYS GALLERY, Shibuya Modi, Tokyo

Publications

Sekaikan no Tsukurikata: Idea-dashi kara Design made, Wakariyasui Concept Art Nyumon, Shoeisha, 2021